Anselm, the Conjurer is a custom champion made for CCC4, a custom champion competition organized by Lykrast, with each round focusing on a specific feature. In this round, the feature was to have spammable basic abilities with a base cooldown of 5 seconds or less each. In addition, the champion's kit would feature a mechanic that would either discourage spam or create a tradeoff when spamming abilities.

With this mind, Anselm is a mid to close-range artillery mage, with a kit purely focused on dealing ramping damage. He focuses heavily on positioning: while his primary damage spell forces him to remain immobile, he has a host of tools that allow him to quickly reposition and avoid attacks directed at him. His playstyle is extremely opportunistic, requiring him to exploit his opponent's position and react to incoming attacks in a split-second: while lacking in significant burst, crowd control and AoE, he more than makes up for it in raw DPS and utility, allowing him to thrive in situations that would kill most other mages.

While it may seem weird to give bonus movement speed to a mage, I'm giving Anselm this passive as I'm also making his primary damage spell force him to stand still to cast. The decision here should be to choose when to continue casting, dealing more damage at the risk of getting caught, and when to move, sacrificing damage for better positioning. With this, I'm making Anselm relatively squishy, and I gave him very low base movement speed, so good decision-making here is critical.

The idea of Anselm came from World of Warcraft's mages, in particular arcane mages, who are capable of unleashing massive non-stop single-target DPS while possessing amazing utility and repositioning tools on the side. I want Anselm to have a similar playstyle: if played well, he becomes extremely good at kiting and evading enemies while bombarding them from a distance, while being forced to always remain within a risky distance of his target.

Magic Missile

RANGE: 625

COST: 22 / 24 / 26 / 28 / 30 mana

Active: Anselm channels for 0.75 seconds before launching a magical orb at the target enemy. The orb collides with the first enemy it hits, dealing magic damage and applying a stack of Barrage, stacking up to twice. For each stack of Barrage, Magic Missile costs 50% more mana and deals 50% more damage, up to 100% increased mana cost and damage. Barrage stacks last 3 seconds.

Magic Damage: 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 / 100 (+ 20% AP)

Maximum Magic Damage: 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+ 40% AP)

Orb Speed: 1200

Magic Missile has no cooldown, and its channel time is reduced by cooldown reduction.

Additional info

Magic Missile is Anselm's primary damage spell, and the source of his huge DPS. While the damage may seem tiny, the ramp-up and channel time means that, if left uninterrupted, he can out-DPS any other mage, particularly when using his ultimate.

Against big targets, I wanted Magic Missile to have several tradeoffs: while its potential damage output over time is massive, it requires proper positioning to pull off (your target can block orbs by hiding behind minions), and the longer you remain immobile, the likelier you are to get caught. Additionally, spamming Q over time will take a toll on your mana, so you need to choose whether to harass opportunistically or to commit to a barrage of spells. On the side, though, it can be used to last hit at little cost.

Arcane Explosion

RANGE: 450

COST: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 mana

COOLDOWN: 3

Active: Anselm releases an explosion of arcane energy around him, dealing magic damage to all affected enemies and slowing them for 0.5 seconds. Arcane Explosion's slow is increased by a multiplicative 25% on enemies affected by Arcane Explosion in the past 4 seconds, stacking up to twice for a maximum multiplicative 50% increase.

Arcane Explosion is Anselm's primary kiting spell: while it doesn't offer the raw damage output of Magic Missile, the stacking burst slow allows Anselm to maintain distance between him and his target as he repositions himself. As with Magic Missile, there is a tradeoff to spamming this: while the stacking slow only affects enemies already hit by Arcane Explosion, subsequent casts drain an increasingly large amount of Anselm's mana, limiting his ability to spam this spell for waveclear or overly long kiting.

Active: Anselm shifts his form to a different plane, becoming untargetable for 1 second. While untargetable, Anselm cannot cast spells, use items or attack, but can still move. Subsequent casts of Phase Shift within 6 seconds reduce the untargetability duration by 0.25 seconds, down to a minimum of 0.5 seconds.

Additional info

A one-point wonder skill, Phase Shift is what allows Anselm to attack from relatively up close with a measure of safety. If timed properly, the active allows Anselm to avoid potentially massive amounts of damage and crowd control, and the passive lets him benefit from a high-risk playstyle by recharging his mana as he grazes the enemy's attacks. If abused, though, the active becomes massively weaker, meaning that you can't spam this to become immune to all damage or to avoid getting caught.

Duplicate

RANGE: 700

COST: 100 mana

COOLDOWN: 75

Active: Anselm summons an immobile copy of himself with his health, armor and magic resistance at the target location that lasts for up to 10 seconds. The duplicate copies Anselm's spells, focusing on the same target and dealing a percentage of the original spell's damage.

Spell Damage: 30 / 40 / 50%

Anselm can cast Duplicate again to switch positions with his copy, and can do so even when under the effects of Phase Shift. Anselm can switch positions multiple times.

Additional info

Duplicate is equal parts damage steroid and kiting tool, allowing Anselm to multiply his damage output while also giving him the opportunity to kite his targets through clever position swaps. Even with a duplicate, however, Anselm remains fragile, and his immobile clone can be taken down easily, so he has to worry about not only his own positioning, but also his clone's.

STATIC COOLDOWN: 3

Active: Anselm swaps positions with his duplicate.

Additional info

The reason I wanted Anselm to be able to swap positions multiple times with his duplicate was so that he could "take over" his clone, i.e. swap positions with it, move himself to a better position, and swap back as needed. I also want Anselm to be very slippery in general, so he could use his position swap multiple times to double-team a single target as they figure out which target to prioritize.

What are your thoughts? Does this fit the contest's requirements? How does the kit seem to you?